Tamed by her Duke (Seductive Mysteries #4)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

C aleb saw the moment the fight went out of Graham. The man wasn’t built for a fight, and for all his grand words about weapons and power, he was, like most bullies, a coward beneath it all.

“She was just supposed to be bloody useful for once,” Graham spat. “That’s the thing about daughters. They’re only good for being used. That’s what they’re for .”

Caleb threw the man back into the chair with force, since the only other option was to break all his bones, and Graham likely wouldn’t be able to continue confessing through all the screaming, if Caleb chose that route.

“Why?” he growled. “What did ye need that ye didn’t already have? What did ye need that was worth puttin’ your daughter at risk?”

Graham bared his teeth and, somehow, Caleb knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“This country is going to hell,” he said. “And Parliament is too full of idiots and so-called ‘redeemers’ to put things right again. I needed them to listen to me.”

He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe that anyone would be so foolish as to dare to disagree with him.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like that. Priscilla was meant to deliver me Dowling, who was supposed to take the fall. A failed kidnapping, you see. If he was killed in the process, was shown to be a radical?” The duke shrugged, then winced at the motion. “All the better. Then her reputation would still be unblemished, and she could be useful when it came time to marry her off.”

His voice grew thick with disgust. It was all Caleb could do not to kill him just then.

“Priscilla was a greedy little slut, though. She thought she could get the best of me. So she told Dowling something different than what she told me, and he got away with Grace. The plan still worked, for all the incompetence being strewn about. Everyone was so worried over poor little Grace.”

“So ye left her?” Caleb asked. “Ye left your child to be held prisoner—for years —so that ye could get sympathy?”

Graham gave him a pitying look. “I was changing England . All Grace had to do was live in a barn. The results were well worth the sacrifice. Besides,” he added, “she found her way back anyway, didn’t she? A little soiled, I suppose, and rather less useful than she was before, but she returned. She wasn’t even harmed.”

He said this so flippantly, as if the fact that Grace still had all her limbs meant that his actions had been justified. He said it like he didn’t care—like he’d never even considered —her fear, her pain.

But Caleb knew about those things. He cared. He loathed to think of every second that Grace was mistreated, grew murderous over pondering any harsh words spoken against her. And he saw the lasting effect it had on her, saw it in the way her gaze grew distant when she spoke of the tenants being cold, when she gasped in the night, only to grope for him blindly, not settling until she felt him there with her again.

He saw it. And if the Duke of Graham didn’t, it was because he didn’t care to look.

And for that, the man deserved to be punished.

Caleb’s logical mind had left him; all that was left was rage, righteous fury. This man had been tasked with protecting Grace for most of her life, and he had failed beyond comprehension.

Caleb would not fail. He would be her vengeance. He would be her red right hand. He would strike so that she did not have to.

The duke deserved no mercy; he deserved no final words, no consolation, no explanation.

So, Caleb said nothing. He just stood, reached, put his fingers around the duke’s throat, and began to squeeze.

It took a second, maybe two, for the Duke of Graham to realize what was happening. Those seconds were fatal. By the time he began grappling against Caleb’s grip, it was too late. He was already losing air, was already growing dizzy from the way Caleb’s bruising grip compressed the veins in his neck. His face grew red. His mouth moved in a panic. His nail bit into Caleb’s hands, his arms, but he didn’t relent. He would not relent, not until the man was dead.

Not until the duke was dead or until a small, slender hand laid on his arm, the touch staggeringly gentle compared to Caleb’s violence.

“Stop, Caleb,” his wife said, her eyes too understanding. “You have to stop.”

The flicker of wildness in her husband’s gaze left Grace temporarily uncertain that he’d heard her, that her words had gotten through to him. But his grip relented, not enough to release her father, but enough that the Duke of Graham was able to start sucking great, noisy breaths in through his mouth.

“You heard,” Caleb said, focus entirely on her, as if the man he was throttling was a mere afterthought.

She nodded. She felt numb to the revelation, though she knew that wouldn’t last. There would come a time to cry and weep and rail. But now, all she felt was a grim sort of acceptance.

Of course it had been her father all along. Of course. Who else could it have been?

“I did,” she confirmed. “But that doesn’t mean you should kill him. Not,” she added, casting a spare glance for her father, who looked a mess, tears dripping from his eyes and snot leaking from his nose as he continued to gasp, “that I say as much for his sake.” She looked up at Caleb again, whose gaze had no left her face. “But he’s not worth becoming a murderer over.”

Caleb clenched his jaw. “I’ve killed before, leannan ,” he reminded her. “It’s all I’m good for.”

She let the hand she was still resting on his arm clench, let him feel the bite of her nails for just a second, let that pinprick of pain punctuate her point.

“It is not, ” she said crossly, “the only thing you are good for. Caleb.” Her tone softened. “I need you here. I need you to stay with me.” She swallowed hard, emotion choking her throat. “I need you to keep me safe, to be there when I get afraid. You can’t let him —” She didn’t even spare her traitorous father a glance. “—take you away from me. Not you, too.” She felt tears welling in her eyes. “Please, Caleb. Please.”

She lifted her hand from his arm to caress his cheek. Sure enough, that faint prickle was already forming, even though it had been mere hours since he’d shaved. He leaned, ever so slightly into her touch.

“Let him go,” she exhorted, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.

And, with a sigh, Caleb did, dropping his hands from her father’s neck to cup Grace’s face in return, to draw her mouth to his in a kiss that felt like coming home.

When they pulled apart, the duke was massaging his angry red throat and looking at her with disgust.

“How dare you, Grace?” he demanded, his voice rough. It sounded painful to use. “That man tried to kill m?—”

“Oh, would you just shut up,” Grace snapped. She’d never spoken to her father like that, had never even come close, and he flinched in surprise.

“I heard everything you—you bastard!” It was as vicious an insult as she could make to someone like her father, someone who valued his bloodline and family name above all else. It might not have been strictly true, and was, Grace felt, an insult to those born on the wrong side of the blanket, but it landed all the same.

“Grace Miller!”

“It’s Grace Gulliver ,” she reminded her father acidly. “And thank the heavens for it. I want nothing of yours, not your name, not your history, not your money. Nothing . You are not my father; you are barely even human, as far as I can see. No, you are a monster, driven by greed and self-importance. I never want to see you again. I am glad to be rid of you.”

Even after everything, her father had the temerity to look angry with her.

“You’re going to trust this Scottish brute over me?” he sputtered.

Grace laughed directly in his face. “You mean my husband? Yes, I trust him over you—I would have done so even if I hadn’t heard the admission from your very own lips.” She shook her head. “Maybe you should have chosen differently when you tried to make me useful to you by marrying me off.”

Caleb’s hand came up and landed on her shoulder in a gesture of silent support.

Graham—she would no longer think of him as her father, she decided then and there—tried to shift tactics.

“Nobody will credit you,” he said. “The documents could have been forged. And you’re just a woman—and he’s just a Scot. When they see how he’s brutalized me, he’s the one who will be gaoled, not me.”

“That might have been true,” said a calm, even voice from behind him, “if not for the fact that we heard, too.”

Graham whipped around in his chair—and that looked like it hurt, too, Grace noted with savage glee—to see his son, standing straight backed, the only sign of his distress the white knuckles where he gripped his wife’s hand.

“And before you say that you’ll accuse me of trying to usurp you,” Evan said dryly, as if already bored with whatever his father might try next, “I’ll have you know that we’ve the constabulary here, too.”

At these words, a man popped his head round the edge of the doorframe. He looked downright cheerful in a manner that was just on this side of inappropriate, given the circumstances.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Inspector Drummond. As his lordship indicated, I did hear one Frederick Miller, Duke of Graham—though I suspect you’ll be stripped of that title, if I’m telling the truth—confess to conspiracy to abduct Her Grace, Grace Gulliver, the Duchess of Montgomery as part of a scheme to defraud Parliament.” He tsk ed. “I imagine the other lords aren’t going to like that very much.”

He glanced at Evan, then Caleb, ignoring Graham entirely. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, that sums it up quite nicely,” Evan said, tone sharp and dipped in acid.

“You missed the part where this man assaulted me!” Graham cried. He flung an arm in Caleb’s direction, nearly striking Grace. Caleb growled, fists clenching, but Grace patted his chest soothingly.

“You see?” Graham demanded. “He’s going to do it again!”

Drummond looked unimpressed. “I didn’t see anything of the kind. I was behind the door, you see.”

“He threatened me! You must have heard that!”

Drummond shrugged. “I never was much good at Scots accents.”

Caleb gave the constable an approving nod at this.

“All right, then,” Drummond called into the hallway. Evan cradled Frances protectively, urging her to one side so that two more constables could enter. “Cuff him, then, boys.”

“Wait, no!” Graham sputtered. He stumbled back, nearly crashing into Grace, so Caleb gave him a shove in the small of the back that sent the older man careening directly into the officers’ grasp. “No! You cannot cuff me like a common criminal! I’m a duke!”

Drummond didn’t even look up from where he was jotting notes on a small tablet of paper he’d produced from a pocket.

“Like I said, I doubt that title will stick. Besides—” He glanced up at Grace. “—how long were you kept captive, Your Grace? Several years, wasn’t it?”

“Three,” she confirmed. Caleb’s hand tightened briefly on her shoulder.

“Cheer up, then,” Drummond told Graham. “You’ll be out of those cuffs in far less time.”

“But my reputation!”

“Ah yes,” said Drummond. “It likely will suffer. Nothing to be done about it, I’m afraid. Take him off, please, boys.”

The two junior constables complied, half dragging Graham away. His fading protests had melted away for perhaps ten seconds when murmurs of shock, then cries of dismay, sounded from the ballroom below.

Even if he didn’t go to gaol or lose his title or his holdings, Grace thought, this punishment was the worst one Graham could likely imagine. He’d be the object of gossip for the rest of his days. He would never recover, not from this.

It was a very nice thought.

“Well,” Drummond said smartly, putting the tablet and small pencil back into his jacket pocket. “This whole affair has made my career, but, Your Grace—” A nod to Grace. “—I do hope you will forgive me if I hope that, for your sake, we do not cross paths again.”

“No forgiveness needed, Inspector,” she replied. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“Ah, just doing my job. By your leave then, Your Grace, Your Grace, Your Lordship and Ladyship.”

Then, with a bow, he was gone.

It felt like closing the end of a book, the way the door clicked shut behind him.

And Grace felt the composure drain out of her, like a chasm had opened deep inside. She half collapsed as she threw herself into Caleb’s arms, tears beginning to fall as she gasped a sob against her chest. He clutched her to him with all the strength in his sturdy, implacable arms.

“It’s all right, leannan . You’re all right now. You’re safe. I’ve got ye.”

Absently, Grace heard the murmur of her brother’s voice, then the sound of the door again as he and Frances slipped away. But none of that mattered to her.

Because Caleb had her. And as long as he said that she was safe, she knew it to be true.